Disclosure Details

Hate crime 751/16

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your e mail dated 28 June 2016 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. How many racially aggravated crimes were reported to you in the three weeks between Friday 10th June 2016 and Thursday 30th June 2016? What was the date, location and and racial group targeted in these incidents?

2. How many racially aggravated crimes were reported to you in the week between Thursday 23rd June 2015 and Wednesday 29th June 2015?

3.How many racially aggravated crimes were reported to you in 2015?

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

In the information provided, the date refers to the date the incident was reported. This date may be different to the date that the alleged incident took place or the date that the incident was formally recorded as a crime.

Regarding the racial group targeted, in most cases, this is unspecified as the incident involved the offender directing ambiguous racist comments towards the victim. Many times this bears no connection to the victim's self classified ethnicity.

A number of the 'racial groups' targeted refer to the religion of the victim, as assumed by the offender. These have been recorded with both a race and faith flag.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

With the above in mind please see the attached which fully answers your query.

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.